Gulfport, FL - A Slice of Historic Florida
Gulfport is a 2.5 square mile waterfront city with old Florida charm. Known for its friendliness, diversity, thriving arts community and off-beat historic flavor. Its historic waterfront area is full of restaurants, unique shopping experiences and home of the famed 1930s era Gulfport Casino. The waterfront business district is easily accessible by boat with docking facilities at the Casino or Gulfport Marina.

Photo courtesy of the City of Gulfport and Renker Eich Architects

Major employers include Boca Ciega Yacht Club, Crystal Clear Technologies, Gulfcoast Sea Food, and the Pasadena Yacht & Country Club. Founded in 1900 as Florida first law school, the Stetson University College of Law's enrollment is 842 full-time and 225 part-time students.

Opportunities
With two designated Community Redevelopment Areas (CRAs), there are a variety of options available for development. The City adopted overlays in both CRAs to encourage mixed-use redevelopment.

The 84-acre Waterfront Redevelopment Area has a more traditional “downtown” atmosphere encouraging the reuse of existing structures to preserve the character of this quaint locale. The land use is primarily single and multifamily residential with commercial, recreational and institutional uses along the the main corridor, Beach Blvd. Opportunities exist in the waterfront areas for mixed-use development including live/work and smaller retail, restaurant and office space.

The 186-acre 49th Street Redevelopment Corridor allows for more intense and larger commercial uses. Infill opportunities exist for larger mixed-use projects. The City is encouraging both new development as well as the redevelopment of older buildings.

Entrepreneurs

The goal is for the PCEDA to design and construct an approximate 50,000 square-foot business incubator space and outsource the operation to a third party operator. The incubator shall provide two primary functions: (1) support programs and services such as business mentoring/coaching, idea validation, strategy development, marketing assistance, network opportunities, workforce development, access to capital, access to b-schools and interns, and standard office resources; and (2) a dedicated workspace that is a combination of affordable leased spaces and flexible collaborative workspaces.The business incubator shall leverage local and regional entrepreneurship and innovation programs/activities to best support start-ups and small businesses that create high salaried jobs throughout the County and the region. The business incubator shall support targeted industry clusters, and help the County become a leader in sustained entrepreneurship.